


Ya’aburnee

by dreamersdeservebetter



Category: clexa - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Grim reaper au, clexa as death itself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8434402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamersdeservebetter/pseuds/dreamersdeservebetter
Summary: (Arabic, noun) Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.





	1. Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Initially posted on tumblr, and inspired by this gifset: http://yeahclexa.tumblr.com/post/148959736312/what-a-concept
> 
> Trigger warnings will vary according to chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //Clarke//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Death mention (Let me know if I should tag anything else)

He awakes in a dream with the ice crystallizing the walls of his lungs. He cannot breathe, can barely cough, but he staggers forward into a broken run. All he knows is he’s had this dream before. That he has to get away.

His skin is stiffening with an opaque glaze of ice, the stabbing cold making it feel as though his bones might snap at every step. After running, limping, stumbling for what may well have been an eternity, the ground seems to soften underfoot. It feels like grass, despite the thin coating of ice. He coughs, laughing almost, in the face of whatever thought it had trapped him again.

But the wind whispers. He is so focused on escaping, he does not realize that his fate is already sealed. 

With the suddenness of a blizzard, she is everywhere. He feels the unrelenting pressure of an impossibly strong arm tighten across his throat and he chokes. Tears leak from of the corners of his eyes out of fear and frustration, and immediately freeze, pinching painfully at his skin. He reaches back, attempting to dislodge his attacker and in the same instant she appears before him, her hand slamming into his throat, gripping hard enough to nearly shatter his aching windpipe.

He grabs wildly at her, and the skin of his shaking hand fuses to her wrist in the burning cold.

He stares at her in terror. She is inhumanly pale, every inch of her coated in the blue-white of pure ice. Unyielding icicles drip jaggedly from the arm that now holds her victim aloft. Her iris frosts over and she does not blink, tilting her head, emotionlessly observing the way her grasp draws the air from him in a thin white plume. He has quit struggling and hangs defeated from her hand, hoping desperately for the quiet embrace of death, not understanding why he is not already gone. Then she speaks.

Her voice is grating, almost brittle. Terrorizing the mind with images of scraping walls of gutted ice and cracking glaciers. It is high like the bitter wind howling over permafrost wastelands.

**_You thought you could escape me, boy?_  
** **_You know nothing of the void. I will always find you. In every lifetime you pass through, I will be there at the end._**  
**_Every time you thought you had escaped this dream was another step you took closer to my embrace._**  
**_You have been made to suffer for every unkindness you brought upon the innocent in this life._**  
**_And now, the one thing you fled from above all has caught up to you._**

**_Yu gonplei ste odon._**

His eyes widen in a last moment of absolute fear and then the light in them is gone. She releases his throat and his lifeless body crumples to the snowy ground in a heap. She contemplates the young man’s cruel life for one moment more, then she turns with sleet and hail swirling all around, and the dream follows her. Melting into vast emptiness, he is left alone in his bed, body stiffening with rigor mortis and no trace of his last visitor’s touch.

Her movements are not calculated. You cannot escape her. She is a bringer of death and those who waste their lives causing pain will be made to suffer at her hands. She is death. She is sleep.


	2. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //Lexa//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Death mention, claustrophobia, panic, blood (Let me know if I should tag anything else)

His eyes open into blackness. It is a darkness so dense that he is unsure that he can still see any longer. He blinks, swallowing in an attempt to wet his already dry throat. He’s had this dream before, the tightening in his chest tells him.

Trying to tamp down his fear, he crawls forward on hands and knees, feeling for anything solid to hold onto. His fingers brush something and he latches onto it before realizing what he’s touching. It’s slick and soft and too warm and he recoils in horror at the sudden smell of blood.

As soon as it comes, all sensations of it vanish. His teeth chatter in the blinding gloom and he starts forward once again. He reaches a violently shaking hand out, flattening it against the textureless ground and in an instant everything shifts.

The dark space seems to curve, switching polarity and tumbling him into midair. Directionless, he swerves, slamming into what feel like trees with jagged bark and random geometric objects drawn from dimensional space.

A light flashes somewhere, further disorienting him. It is painfully bright, slicing through the blackness and outlining his body like a still from a lightning-storm night. But it is almost welcome, nothing more terrifying than the desolation of the pitch black vacancy.

He finally crashes to a standstill, battered and trembling everywhere, the unease rising to an uncontrollable panic. He picks himself up and runs further into the nothingness, crazed with fear, desperate to get away.

It is the kind of blackness that eats its way into his mind, making space only for the terrors that refuse to be seen in the light of day. It is heavy, thick like syrup, and engulfs him, filling his lungs.

He is terrified to the point of insanity, unable to breathe, to scream. Like claustrophobia, it forces every ounce of bravado out of him, reducing him to the basest most cowardly version of himself in a state of sheer paralyzed panic.

After running toward an unnamed destination for what could be an eternity, he collapses under the weight of agonizing dread. There is no noise, the silence choking him, swallowing up the sound of his ragged breathing. The thrum of blood through his veins that tells him he still lives does nothing to quell his apprehension, and his heart stutters irregularly in his chest.

The strike of a match nearly breaks him and he utters nonsensical noises of terror, babbling but unable to form words. He is so accustomed to the deadened blackness that the blooming of fire in the dusty kerosene lamp renders him sightless for a moment. For a split-second somewhere in his fear-racked mind, he is almost hopeful. Perhaps this is the end of his recurring nightmare. Maybe he has a chance.

That flicker of hope is quickly extinguished.

He falls back onto his hands and remains frozen to the spot, quaking in horror, eyes locked on the specter holding the lamp. She towers over him, her simple gown streaming with blood, dried and wet. Her hands are marbled with streaks of the dark liquid that run up the length of her arms. Her hand is steady, holding the lamp that burns with a flame that is somehow cold.

Her face is shadowy, emotionless, as she takes step after measured step toward him. His eyes dart to her blood-spattered face as she crouches before him, setting the lamp down, and he wishes he hadn’t. Her features are stony, bloodless in their pallor, and he can’t tear his gaze away. But the worst part are her eyes. The relentless, most soulless black that human sight can ever know. Their pure stygian depth hypnotizes him, drawing in his mind and his sanity. There is no exception, the glimmer of the lamp’s flame does not reflect off their surface. They are pure darkness. And no light can escape.

She speaks.

Her voice is thick. All breath and shadow.

**_Hello, boy._ **  
**_You thought I might be the saviour from this dream?_ **

Then it is the growl, the staccato of innumerable voices, lashing out in a cold fury like brambles in the opaque silence of a forest in the night.

**_THIS IS MY DOMAIN, BOY._ **  
**_I have visited you in your sleep for decades. You always knew this night would come._ **  
**_I am the fear you run from even as you burn innocents to the ground._ **  
**_You could never run far enough to escape me._ **  
**_You have been made to suffer for every unkindness you brought upon the innocent in this life._ **  
**_And now, the one thing you fled from above all has caught up to you._ **

**_Yu gonplei ste odon._ **

His eyes widen in a last moment of absolute fear and then the light in them is gone. His body collapses as his last breath chokes out of him. She blinks once, slowly, taking in the hollow shell of a cruel man. Then she turns away, the blackness bleeding into empty light, and the dream follows her. Fading into vast emptiness, he is left alone in his bed, body stiffening with rigor mortis and no trace of his last visitor’s touch.

Her movements are graceful and weightless. You cannot escape her. She is a bringer of death and those who waste their lives causing pain will be made to suffer at her hands. She is death. She is lightlessness.


	3. Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //Lexa//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Death mention, car crash (Let me know if I should tag anything else)

Lights flash.

The scream of rubber on asphalt mingling with those of the victims.

And an awful crunch, the smash of broken glass punctuating the impact.

There’s no downpour, no crowd gathering like vultures around the spectacle.

It’s understated, almost obscene, how quickly the quiet summer night swallows up the violence of it all.

The police come. They always do. Hurting in their sympathy, but quickly disengaging. They have a job to do, after all.

Ask, ask, ask. Whose fault? Who did this?

It’s a car crash. An accident. All an accident.

A man sits at the roadside, head in his hands, another comforts him. A third one dead. Taken already, stinking of liquor and a misery he could not make others understand.

She walks carefully, stepping like elegance amongst the wreckage; the observant scavenger picking her way through the twisted metal bones. She drips darkness like beauty. But no one sees. Save but one.

Tonight she is here is collect. A valkyrie raising her soldier to higher planes.

She kneels and extends a long, gentle hand.

**_Hello, sweetheart._ **

“Hello!” A bright voice chirps back. “Are you the one they tol’ me about when I went t’sleep?”

**_Yes. I imagine you have questions. We have some time._ **

“Who’re the voices? They sounded nice. Like my gran’ma on Sundays. Didjoo know she always gave me a candy even when my daddies said she shouldn’t?”

**_They are people you know and love. They wanted to welcome you, to make sure you are ready and unafraid. Are you afraid, little one?_ **

“Nope!” She smiles a gap-toothed grin and the specter’s eyes crinkle, hinting at a smile. “I remember you. I always thought it was sumpthin’ hidin’ in my closet or unner the bed, but now I know it’s you. You’re real pretty.”

The woman blinks slowly, and the girl sees a infinite kindness in her shadowy eyes. Their black depths are not off-putting to her, but soothing in their warmth and subtly ever-shifting shades of darkness. She giggles and reaches out to run a small hand through a loose wave of the woman’s dark hair.

**_Yes, I have looked after you. I am sorry, child._ **

“Why?” Her hazel eyes are wide, inquisitive, not a hint of judgement.

**_Tonight. It was not your time, I am sorry._ **

“It’s okay. My daddies say that sometimes things happen that don’t mean to,” she looks through the haze at the figures huddled by the side of the road, grief-stricken. “Do I get t’see them again soon? I don’t want them t’worry. They worry so much.”

Dark eyes shift to the husbands numbly clutching at one another. They are both injured, but her eyes look deeper. The quiet stamp of death to come. She sighs, and it sounds like the forest’s hush.

**_I will be bringing one of them to you soon. The other will take some time before you can see him again. But he will never stop loving you in that time._ **

“I know,” the child states matter-of-factly, “He pinky-promised me.”

**_Come now. It is time we leave this place. Are you ready?_ **

She takes one last look at her parents, then meets the eyes of her personal angel, knowing that the time for goodbyes has passed.

“I’m ready.”

**_You have brought such sunlight to their world._ **  
**_Smiles to the faces of strangers._ **  
**_It was not your time, but you handle it with love and understanding._ **  
**_You are a treasure, a blessing, and loved._ **  
**_And now it is time to move on._ **

**_Take my hand, little one._ **

She does, and the specter stands. The two walk into the night, fading into unseeable light. And only a whisper is left behind, words that never fall to mortal ears.

**_Yu gonplei stej odon._ **


	4. Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //Clarke//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Death mention, depression (Let me know if I should tag anything else)

Their bones ache.

It's a tired feeling that settled amongst the cells and liquid pull of warm, sluggish blood in their veins long ago. The pain is dull and passive, and they and it coexist in uneasy harmony. It is an unwelcome acceptance that sits like a tumor, heavy and warm, seeping stickily into the fabric of their burdened mind.

Living is tired.

They have fought too many battles in the wars of others, by virtue of what is right and good and kind and the rewards have been scarce and thankless.

They have fought too many demons dismissed as shortcomings, as delusions, and with no one by their side. Aid is rare and limited.

They sigh, restless in their apathy, nerves scraped raw by burning sensations that fall flat and peaceful for what seems to be everyone else. Stillness is stifling, but they can never shut off the feeling. Feeling breaks them. And they breathe in, trying to feel whole.

Drifting back into a unsympathetic slumber, the pale grey of a loveless dream wraps around their mind. They reach through the harsh blank haze, hoping for beyond. But they see the same as always, and it drives exhaustion deeper into their the space behind their eyes.

They expect to wake, feverish with muted desire, mouth dry and bile at the back of their throat. But their eyes never open, and somewhere in the dream, something endlessly tender reaches back.

**_Lovely._ **

They feel no fear, only curiosity as a cool hand takes theirs, seeming to form out of the flowing mist that quietly surrounds them. For the first time, they don’t remember. Their mind doesn’t race, heart not beating recklessly against their ribcage, and they let out a faltering sigh.

**_I heard that._ **

The voice hums with gentle affection, soft like the chilling autumn breeze.

**_You deserve to let out a sigh like that, princet. It has been a long life. And you have been too strong for too many. How do you feel?_ **

“I- I’ve never felt so light.”

A woman steps from the bluish grey of the mist, her other hand rising to clasp theirs, the air weaving with familiarity through the gauzy fabric of her dress. Her eyes are a blue they have seen only once before, the blue of falling without regrets.

**_I am sorry, love._ **

“Sorry?” They laugh softly, and blue eyes blink knowingly. “I’m not. I helped some people. Even when I couldn’t help me. At least I did something right. Didn’t I?”

**_You did._ **

“Thank you,” they breathe, as if being forgiven a thousand times over. A tear breaks away from the corner of their eye, slipping down their cheek. The specter lifts a shadowless hand, allowing it to spill onto her fingers.

**_And are you afraid?_ **

“No. Never. I miss…” A wistful look flickers across their features for a moment, but it is gone. And they smile without hurt. “I’m ready to go home.”

Stepping in, the specter envelops them in a selfless embrace, and they soften into her arms.

**_You have brought such care to this world._ **  
**_Answered wordless pleas for help without the ability to tend to your own._ **  
**_It has been too long, but you have suffered through every bitter moment with love and understanding._ **  
**_You are a blessing. Grounded, and infinite in your giving._ **  
**_And now it is time to move on._ **

**_Let us go home, patient one._ **

Unfolding together, the two walk away side-by-side, mist pooling into clean white space. And only a whisper is left behind, words that never fall to mortal ears.

**_Yu gonplei stej odon._ **


	5. ( ; )

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //Clarke//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Death mention, suicide, overdose, alcohol (Let me know if I should tag anything else)

The alcohol burns more straight from the bottle, it doesn’t matter what kind. It does nothing to dissolve the hardened resentment that sits like a stone in his stomach. Mute, heavy and cold.

_Just another night._ He thinks, turning his phone over in his hands. No messages. No calls. Empty, empty, empty.

He lets it slip from his fingers, thudding to the carpeted floor below.

He takes another swig, practicing, and chokes. Coughing, he grips the torn denim of his jeans for purchase as tears blur his already swimming vision.

Bent double, he retches weakly, stomach clenching around nothing. Shaking, he drags air into his burning lungs one breath at a time, bottle still clutched at his side. A bitter laugh escapes him, barked out loudly in the small space, which quickly smothers the sound. He drags a hand down his face, letting it drop into his lap as he stares vacantly at the tidy room.

His eyes drop to the hand in his lap, searching the folds and tiny scars that punctuate the dark landscape of his skin. He flexes his fingers and looks away.

Streetlamps hum outside, casting orange light that slants through the plastic blinds. It matches the neat row of plastic bottles on the nightstand, some empty, some filled with tablets that beckon.

White. Clean. Clinical.

Relief.

He lunges drunkenly, knocking several off the table, and manages to grab two that sit half full. He opens them with careful reverence, as if afraid to disturb their sleeping potential. Spilling them into an open palm, he stares. The pills sit neutrally in his shaking hand.

Suddenly calm, he picks up the scattered bottles, resetting their lineup on the table. He sits straighter, slowly swinging his gaze over the familiar room. When he swallows the pills, he counts as they disappear, washed down with the burning liquor. When his hand lies blank, free of the silent white tablets, he sets the bottle down beside his bed and lays back.

His tear-dried eyes hurt behind drooping eyelids and his fevered mind slows.

Time breathes.

He slips.

And there is a snap like the thinnest thread being pulled taut. It tugs, threatening to unravel. A hand comes to rest on it, and soft fingers come together, rolling the breaking strand between them.

The same hand smooths over his feverish forehead, and his eyes open at the cool touch.

He breathes easily, dark eyes coming to rest on the woman who sits by his side. She doesn’t smile, but there is kindness in her frost-blue eyes, and he is unafraid.

**_You’ve come early._ **

“It’s not how I pictured it.”

**_What did you expect instead?_ **

“I dunno. More, I guess. Fire or iron gates. Darkness, maybe.”

**_It is all of those things for some._ **

“Well, whatever I was expecting, I didn’t think hell would be so bright.” He says, indicating the surrounding glow, bright and soft and clean. “So quiet.”

**_Who says this is hell?_ **

He laughs, a rich, genuine sound that fills the endless space.

“Well there’s no way I’m getting into heaven. Not after all this. Unless you’re here to tell me otherwise.”

The woman tilts her head, blonde hair shifting, and regards him.

**_Perhaps it is all subjective in the case of humans. Death does not discriminate once you pass over._ **

He breathes, processing, and taps a finger against his lips. “So I really am dead. I guess I should be relieved. Guess I am. Right?”

**_If you were sure, would you be asking me?_ **

“Guess not. What’s there to miss though?” He nods, seeming to harden in his resolved. “There’s nothing left for me.”

**_Why are you here?_ **

“Took a bunch of pills, why else? Don’t think it was the burger I had earlier.” He smiles at his own joke and the specter blinks in response.

“Oh.”

**_Yes._ **

“Living’s fuckin’ hard.” He sighs, rubbing his jaw. “Don’t s’ppose you’d know anything about that. People out there hate people like me for how I look, how I dress, the things I’ve had to do to survive and provide for my own in the past. Never got any breaks. Things went to shit. I lost everything. Can’t even see my kids anymore. They were my whole life.”

**_They are alive?_ **

“Yeah, they’re with their mom. She won’t let me near them.”

**_They are alive and yet you are here._ **

“I told you, it doesn’t make a difference. I lost my job, I can’t even visit, what’s the point?”

**_Are you not worthy of life on your own?_ **

“Oh no, don’t you pull that shit on me. I did my time, I tried to be better, but it never paid off. Why try if it never gets you anywhere? No use sticking around if you try and it doesn’t do anything.”

**_What do your children have to say?_ **

Everything about him softens at her question. “They’re angels. Both still at the age where they’d just about forgive me for anything. I’ve never done anything good enough to deserve being looked at how they they see me. My boy draws pictures of adventures we make up together. And my girl comes to me for batting advice. Always says she never would’ve tried out for the team if it hadn’t been for me.”

**_They cherish your time together. You inspire them._ **

“I guess. Ask their mom though. She’ll tell you otherwise.”

**_What is her quarrel with you?_ **

“She says I’m a deadbeat. Can’t hold down a job. That I’m a bad influence on the kids and they need a proper education, not a daydreamer and a criminal for a father. Things used to be brighter, you know? I just wanted to give my kids everything.”

**_Including your life?_ **

He nods his head as tears begin to leak from his eyes, which are set on the clasped hands resting in his lap.

**_From what you say, you seem unconvinced that your life should end this way._ **

“My kids…”

**_You are not ready._ **

At her words, a tremor runs through him. He blinks rapidly, breath coming in short gasps. When he looks up again, the specter seems distant, her hands hanging by her sides and quickly developing a rime of frost.

**_Letting go is harder than you thought. You have made a choice without knowing._ **

He’s shivering now, violently, and he looks at the woman with wide eyes. Her image blurs, rippling like the surface of shattered ice over frigid water.

“What’s happening to me?”

The woman is still, watching him through the heavy haze of swirling ice that divides them now. He cannot see her speak, but the words ring clear and sharp in his mind.

**_Death is finality._**  
**_Your ties to this world are borne of love._**  
**_They ground you, and will not be cut so easily._**  
**_Even as you seek release, you fight to hang on._**  
**_You are loved._**  
**_You are needed._**  
**_And so you hang on._**

**_It would seem you are not mind to keep. Not today._ **

His eyes widen, a blessing or a prayer on his cracked lips before light spills through, forcing his eyes to close. And he sleeps. He will eventually wake to sickness, yet another day of heartache, another step in an endless uphill climb, but still another day. His dreams are cool and empty, save for the memory of a sourceless echo.

**_Yu gonplei nou ste odon._ **  
**_Mebi oso choda op nodotaim._ **


	6. (. . .)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //Lexa//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Death mention, insomnia, depression, disassociation (Let me know if I should tag anything else)

The bed creaks under her, a quiet protest as she turns over, seeking comfort. She wraps the blanket tighter, closing her eyes with a sigh.

Her mind is buzzing, a hum matching that of neon lights in the wakeful city night. She squeezes her eyes shut tighter, twisting again in the restrictive softness of the bedclothes.

She opens her eyes, looking into the vacant space in front of her. She can feel time slide by, dripping away, and she can’t bring herself to mourn the loss.

She’s wound tight in her forced patience. Her jaw clenches, and she rolls over, reaching to slide her phone across the nightstand toward her. The screen illuminates her features, and she burns with regret, feeling her senses wake even further under the blue backlight.

_4:16 AM._

Switching her phone off, she replaces it next to the lamp, then withdraws her hand, folding cold fingers over her empty palm. She taps the pads of her fingers together.

Waiting, waiting.

She feels the acidic grip of sleepless thoughts seep into the folds of her mind like inevitability.

Irrationality grips her and she tries to breathe as she bitterly welcomes the tired routine. She lies still, whispers eating at her mind, and fends them off with a limited store of reassurances, reason and light gathered in the day.

She stares unseeing into her room with bloodshot eyes, with the wish for sleep plaguing her like a worn litany. It weighs heavy, a hollowness deepening in her chest, and she pulls away from her body.

Looking down on herself, a stranger, stone-still in the early morning, she can almost think of herself as peaceful. Her mind hums. And the darkness blossoms in her brain.

There’s a hush. A breath of stillness. She opens her hands, spreading her fingers to greet the darkness.

**_Hello, love._ **

“Hello. I couldn’t sleep.”

**_So I see. Why have you called me here tonight?_ **

She turns to look at the specter, tall and pale, obsidian eyes focused softly on the girl who lies awake in her bed beneath them.

“I want to die.” She laughs, cheerful in her anguish.

The woman is looking at her, with a stillness so sudden it terrifies the girl.

There is such a violence in quiet spaces.

The air hangs timeless between them.

She laughs again.

“I’m twenty seven. It’s not the first time you’ve come around. Figured you’d be used to it by now.” She looks away, full to the brim with memories. “I know I am.”

**_But why do you call this time?_ **

“Because I’m over it? Because it never changes? God, why does anyone want to die? What am I contributing to life?”

**_Focus. You know what I am asking._ **

She blinks, shaking the darkness from her mind, and lets out a long breath.

“Stress. Work. The family that don’t call. The fear that I’m letting them down. The fear that I’m not doing enough-”

**_Over and over, again and again._** The woman quotes the words on the tip of the girl’s tongue back to her.

She stares. “You are used to this.”

**_You have called to me since childhood. I do not forget. You are tired in your youth._ **

“I’m so tired.” She rubs her neck, closing her eyes. “Will I ever stop feeling tired?”

**_Do you always feel tired?_ **

“I-,” She pauses, and the moment stretches as she tears herself away from the immediate responses that arise. “No. I’m happy with my friends. I’m happy making music. Reading books. Taking the dog for his walks every day. Opening up my mind to new things.”

The dark-haired woman dips her head in acknowledgement. Dark thoughts pool once more, and the girl chokes on them. Those shadowy eyes don’t leave the girl’s face.

“I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes. I just want it all to stop.”

**_I am not the answer._ **

“Why not?” She can feel the ugliness that rises, pushing the words up her throat until they tumble out. There is a horrible sanity to those words. A veneer of inarguable logic. There is fear in her eyes that they might hold the truth she seeks.

The woman blinks slowly, expressionless.

**_Why waste what is not broken?_ **

“Of course I’m fucking broken, look at me!” She gestures to the figure curled in blankets below. “I don’t eat right, I push people away, I can’t bring myself to do simple things- things that I like to do. I can’t even sleep!”

**_Are you breathing?_ **

“What? Yeah- Of course I am.”

**_Do you continue on?_ **

“Well, yeah. Sure I do.”

She turns to face the girl, drawing the darkness around her. Her voice is quiet in a way that is felt more than heard. It settles like ink, flowing without resistance.

**_Death is not easy._**  
**_It requires letting go of life, and that is hard in impossible ways._**  
**_You breathe._**  
**_You continue on._**  
**_You are persisting to the best of your ability._**  
**_You cannot be measured against the lives of others._**  
**_As a singular being, in this moment and in every moment to follow, you are perfectly whole._**

**_So it would seem that you are living. And therefore not mine to touch._ **

The girl’s eyes flutter shut as darkness drains from the night, falling, she sinks back into herself. And she sleeps. Fitfully, eyes eventually opening to yet another day lined with exhaustion, but still another day. Her dreams are silent, save for the memory of a sourceless echo.

**_Yu gonplei nou ste odon._ **  
**_Mebi oso choda op nodotaim._ **


End file.
